Hello everyone, and welcome to another live Nutwatch! I’m your host, QueenofSwords, and this week’s guest star is a nurse who dispenses fundamentalism as one of the perks of her job. Just picture Jesus on the cross, except with syringes instead of nails. I was a captive audience, since the Queen Mother was having a blood test at the time for her chemotherapy regime and I was waiting with her, but as it turned out, my own health was the first item on the agenda. For once, I didn’t say much, since the proselytizer in question was sticking needles into my mum, but it was clearly a Nutwatch from the subject’s first brilliantly perceptive observation…

Nurse (to me) : What’s the matter with you? You look so thin.
Me : And you look like a pregnant elephant. Really?
Nurse (evidently believing the news was so dramatic that it required repetition) : You’re very thin!
Me : Everyone who tells me that must think it’s the first time I’m hearing it. You don’t say! And all these years I’ve been thinking I was fat. Well, now I know better.
Nurse (blinking, recovering) : You ought to eat more and get healthy.
Me : I am healthy. I’m not the one sitting in that chair next to you, am I?
Nurse : That’s true, but you shouldn’t boast.
Me : I also shouldn’t have to listen to etiquette lessons from a tactless twit. That wasn’t boasting, that was stating a fact.
Nurse : We should only boast on the Lord.
Me : Don’t tell me that as well as being a mistress of the obvious, she’s a fool for Christ. Really, how much better can this get? Boast on the Lord?
Nurse : God gives you your health, so you shouldn’t--
Mum (clearing throat) : She doesn’t believe in that.
Me : I’m an atheist.
Nurse (looking from one to the other) : She’s not a Christian?
Me : And she’s not fat either. I’ll understand if you need to take the week off to get over your shock. No, I’m not.
Nurse ( to my mum) : But you’re a Christian – I’ve seen you in church. How could you let her say these things?
Me : Yes, the truly godly thing to do would have been to stone me. Though considering your harping on my physical shortcomings, perhaps aquarium gravel could be used instead? What do you mean, how could she let me? I’m twenty-seven. I’m more than old enough to decide about religion for myself.
Nurse : But you made the wrong decision. So your parents should have taught you better.
Me : You really don’t want to know what I think your parents should have done with you.
Mum (to the nurse) : We’ve tried talking to her.
Me : Unfortunately, you’re always thoroughly stumped as I point out every logical fallacy you’ve used, up to and including the comment that “George Washington was a Christian”, which was so very useless that I couldn’t believe it was a proselytizing point. That’s what’s known as bringing a water pistol to a nuclear war.
Mum : We can’t discuss anything with her.
Me : Not unless you secretly got your kicks out of being bested in a debate, no.
Nurse (to my mum) : If you don’t show her what’s right, someday you’ll have to answer for it.
Me : What is that, the Nurse’s Curse? Are you going to take my hair and fingernail clippings and make a little doll too? Why will she have to answer for anything?
Nurse : God holds parents responsible for what their children do.
Me : Way to set a chemotherapy patient at ease when she’s having a blood test there. So what exactly is God going to do to my mother?
Nurse : I don’t know. That’s up to Him.
Me : Code red! We seem to have suffered a failure of imagination! Get some bible backup in here, STAT! Then how do you know that he’ll do anything to her because of my atheism? Shouldn’t that be up to him as well, or are you making that decision for him?
Nurse : Have you read the bible?
Me : Didn’t you hear my question? Should I call an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist? They’re right down the corridor. Mum, you want to get that one?
Mum (to the nurse) : She’s read the bible. She knows it better than we do.
Nurse : But what’s the point?
Me : The point is the thing on the other end of the syringe you’re holding. You might want to go back to medical school if you’re not too clear on that. I’m not sure I understand you.
Nurse : What’s the point of reading the bible if you don’t believe it?
Me : No wonder you’re so bored that you have to preach to people waiting for a blood test; you’ve missed out on the wonderful world of fiction. I recommend starting with Dr. Seuss and working your way up to the Babysitters’ Club. I read the bible so that I have a solid, rational basis for rejecting christianity.
Nurse : You couldn’t have rejected christianity if you read the bible correctly. It’s the most perfect book ever written.
Me : I’m sure Muslims say the same thing about the Holy Qu’ran, and Hindus say the same about the Bhagavad Gita, and Latter Day Saints say the same about the Book of Mormon, and Christian Scientists say the same about Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and Scientologists say the same about--
Mum : Okay, okay.
Me : My point is, what makes you right and all of them wrong?
Nurse (to my mum) : What happened to her?
Me : Why, what happened to me? Did I turn into the Invisible Girl, so that you can’t see me and you have to speak about me in the third person?
Mum : She studied science.
Nurse (to me) : There are so many things scientists don’t know – that they’re discovering every day.
Me : What does that have to do with the existence of a god?
Nurse : The Bible predicted all those things.
Me : Really? Which verses predict prions, or the Horsehead Nebula, or the Internet?
Nurse : God is healing your mother.
Me : Well, aren’t we silly for spending all that money on chemotherapy? Come on, Mum, let’s go home, sit on our hands and wait for God to finish healing you. He’s certainly taking his time, since she’s had cancer for a year now. Does he usually work at the same pace chemotherapy does?
Mum : Is the blood test over? Can I go now?
Nurse (to me) : Just don’t boast about your health. You never know what will happen tomorrow.
Me : You’ll sacrifice a goat and pray that I become brain-dead too? I’ve been fine for twenty-seven years. I see no reason why that state of affairs shouldn’t last through tomorrow.
Nurse : You don’t know that it will.
Me : You don’t know that it won’t. Oh, I get it. You want me sick and in this hospital so that you can work on me with your needles and catheters. Well, it’s not going to happen, Annie Wilkes.
Nurse (to my mum) : All right, we’re finished. You can go. Just pray for her.
Me (to my mum) : Don’t you do that already?
Nurse (to me) : I’ll pray for you too.
Me : The last refuge of those crawling away from a debate to lick their wounds. I wonder if you’ll pray that I get very fat very fast. You pray whatever you like, and I’ll think whatever I like. How does that sound?

I’ve seen some pathetic ways in which fundies try to pressure those strong enough to have escaped the matrix, but these were right up there with the best of them. Rather than using a syringe, perhaps this nurse should gaze into a crystal ball; she could then predict exactly what tragedies would befall my family either in this life or the next. Or better still, she could go down to the morgue and try reading entrails. I’m afraid I’m not corpulent enough to grant her that pleasure, but should we ever meet again, out of the context of a blood test, I’ll be delighted to give her a more figurative evisceration.

Till next week, everyone!

QueenofSwords